Burdwan University makes smooth debut with online admission process

Burdwan University (BU) has become the first state university to start centralised online admission process from this year. And unlike Delhi University (DU), which had to face a lot of hiccups for which it also offered forms on campus, BU had a smooth ride so far.

BU is conducting online admission through its website http://www.buruniv.ac.in for all the honours courses offered in 90 undergraduate colleges affiliated under the university. Through a single online form, students can exercise the option of getting into up to 25 colleges and similar number of courses. There are about 40,000 honours seats on offer under BU. Earlier, the online registration was due to conclude on June 28, but the university has decided to extend it till July 1. Students will be able to submit the application fees of Rs 300 to the bank till July 3. The merit list, too, will be published online on July 5.

The university will not only release the merit list for all the colleges online but will also ensure that none of the colleges are able to admit more students than the sanctioned capacity.

Once the merit list is published, students will have to type their registration number on the university website and they will be able to know their position. Then they have to select the college and course they want to take admission to online. Once that is done, his name from the merit lists of other courses and colleges would be deleted and the name of the students in the waiting list will be automatically updated. With everything happening online, students and guardians will also be able to see how many seats are still vacant in colleges. Thereby helping them to choose the institution they want to study at the earliest.

After selecting a course and a college, the students will not be able to change it. If they wish to select some other course or college, they will again have to do it from the beginning. This process will ensure transparency. “We will be able to ensure that no colleges are able to admit students in honours courses more than the sanctioned capacity. Moreover, the entire process will also leave no chance for any political or bureaucratic quarter to exercise their influence,” said professor Smritikumar Sarkar, vice-chancellor of the university.

Colleges under BU are spread across four districts – Burdwan, Bankura, Hooghly and Birbhum. Explaining how could BU make such a smooth debut when DU located in the capital city of the country was grappling with the new system and therefore had to offer forms on campus, vice-chancellor Sarkar said, “We had extensive meetings with all the college principals on this and had even trained the college staff. Most important thing is that the university had run help centres in the most prominent colleges in all the four districts for students who do not have access to Internet or were not comfortable with the technology.”

While BU main campus had a help centre for students from Burdwan, Suri College served the purpose in Birbhum. For Bankura the help centre was located at Bankura Christian College and Mohsin College in Hoogly had a help centre. The university had also set up a special centre at Arambag Girls’ College.

“The centralised online admission process is not applicable for the students of pass courses. We are not allowing any pass candidates to switch to honours courses. We have also made it clear that those honours students, who have online admission registration numbers, will be offered an enrollment number and registration number,” said Sarkar.

Explaining why the university thought of starting centralised admission process when universities in the city did not think of it, Sarkar said, “In the districts, the distance between college is very high. Hence it becomes difficult for students to run from one college to another. Moreover, we wanted the admission process to be transparent where only the deserving candidates get admission. We wanted to tap and retain local talents through this system.”